Jobless total crashes through 7,000 barrier

AFTER two successive months of falls in the jobless total, Oldham has recorded its worst unemployment figures for 12 years.

For the first time since November. 1996, the number of people out of work in the borough has topped 7,000.

There are 7,015 claimants in the latest government statistics, a rise of 265.

The total comprises 5,294 men — up 180 — and 1,721 women, up 85.

It represents 5.3 per cent of the working population and compares unfavourably with the Greater Manchester regional percentage of 4.7 per cent and the national percentage of 4.2 per cent.

Councillor Kay Knox, who is deputising for holidaying council leader Councillor Howard Sykes, said: “Oldham has done reasonably well for the last few months, but we expected the figures to rise around this time due to a number of factors.

“The major reason is that people who were made redundant 15 or 16 weeks ago are now coming into the claimant count figures.

“Because we were expecting this spike, the regeneration department has been working hard with employers to ensure that CVs are up to date and that specialist training is available to make people more employable.

“Looking ahead, I believe that creation of a ‘War Cabinet’ was one of the best things we could have done to achieve a co-ordinated approach to tackling this problem and helping people get back into work through a range of initiatives.”

Nationally, the recession claimed another 220,000 jobs in the three months to June to take the total number of unemployed to 2.43 million. Unemployment in the UK is now at its highest level since the summer of 1995.

This marks the 17th month in a row where the claimant count has increased in the UK.

The jobless total of 2,435,000 will put further pressure on the Government to take steps to boost the economy.

Youth unemployment rose by 46,000 to 722,000, while the number of people out of work for longer than a year remained at an 11–year high, up by 36,000 to 543,000.

The number of people in work also fell, by 271,000 between April and June to 28.9 million after a fall of 0.9 per cent in the employment rate to 72.7 per cent.

This is the same rate seen earlier this year, which marked the worst since records began.

There was some good news with a slowdown in the number of redundancies — down by 9,000 quarter–on– quarter to 277,000 in the three months to June, although this was up 150,000 on a year earlier.

Vacancies fell to a record low of 427,000 in the three months to July, down by 26,000 on the previous quarter and 203,000 on a year ago.

Manufacturing jobs fell again, by 212,000 year–on–year to 2.66 million in the three months to June, which remained at the lowest since records began in 1978.